The memory of a young Carlsbad man who died in 2008 will be kept alive Feb. 2 in a run that benefits families who have children with serious health issues.

“We’ve walked the walk and know what many of these families are going through,” said Carlsbad resident Beth Thorp, who with her husband, Brad, created the Mitchell Thorp Foundation in memory of their son.

While the couple was caring for Mitchell and desperately trying to find a diagnosis for his head pains, the community held a walk-a-thon to support the family in 2006. After her son died three years later, Thorp said, they formed the foundation to extend the love and support they felt from the event.

The foundation has helped more than 30 families since 2010 by paying various expenses that parents cannot make, often because they are taking time off work to provide round-the-clock care for their sick child.

“There’s a lot of nonprofits to raise money for cures, but nothing really goes to the day-to-day needs of these families,” Thorp said.

The foundation doesn’t provide cash to families, but rather pays for medical equipment not covered by insurance, medical co-payments, hotels, meals, transportation, sibling care, rent and other expenses.

Thorp said last year’s “Whole Lot of Hope” 5K run/walk raised $170,000, and this year’s event will help pay expenses for 12 families, including two from North County — Rebecca Edgin, 15, a Carlsbad High freshman and cheerleader with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and Amanda Barvinchak, 18, a former track star at Rancho Bernardo High School diagnosed with bone cancer last May, a month before her graduation.

Parents of the youths have had to take time off from work to care for their daughters, and the foundation has helped pay some of their expenses.

“They helped me pay part of my rent for November and December, which is really nice,” said Rebecca’s mother, Michelle Edgin.

The single mother of three, who is an emergency room nurse at Scripps Memorial Hospital-Encinitas, has often missed work over the past few months to care for Rebecca. Unexpected expenses for Edgin in the past month have included chemotherapy, medication and trips to the hospital for her daughter.

Barvinchak’s mother, Kim, had to leave her substitute teaching job in the Poway Unified School District to care for her daughter.

“We were really struggling, and the Mitchell Thorp Foundation helped us with a couple of months’ rent, which was really great,” she said.

Amanda Barvinchak was a track star in high school and was planning to attend the University of San Francisco on an athletic scholarship when she was diagnosed.

“She wants to get to college,” her mother said about how her daughter stays motivated through her treatment. “This has been kind of her carrot.”

Amanda is not just determined to attend college, but to run again, despite having her fibula, or calf bone, removed.

“She can’t lift her foot, but we’re hoping for the nerve graft to take soon,” Barvinchak said about a procedure done on Amanda. “Her goal is to run sprints again.”

Barvinchak said Amanda plans to participate in the walk Feb. 2.

Edgin said her daughter, Rebecca, began getting sick on Sept. 9. A trip to the emergency room found something abnormal on an x-ray, and a CT scan detected a large mass in her chest, leading to the diagnosis of leukemia.

Amanda had been a cheerleader at school, but has not attended class since becoming ill. She was in the hospital for half of December.

Edgin said physicians hope to do a bone-marrow transplant if they can find a donor, and her twin brother and sister are scheduled to have their blood drawn this week to see if they are matches.

Assistance from the foundation may help the family get through the recovery period following the transplant, Edgin said.

“I’ve tried to continue working, but it’s really hard being a single parent living off disability,” she said, adding that she is eligible for four more weeks of payment.